Preferential trade agreements and the structure of international trade

In this paper we examine the impact of membership in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on trade between PTA members. Rather than considering the impact of PTA membership on the volume of trade we consider the impact of membership on the structure of trade. For a large sample of countries over the period 1962–2000 we find that membership in a PTA is associated with an increase in the extent of intra-industry trade. Our results indicate that this is especially the case for PTAs formed between richer countries, with the effects of PTAs between poorer countries found to be smaller.     

Vertical trade and free trade agreements

We investigate the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on tariffs and welfare in vertical trade. We consider a three-country model, where an FTA is formed between a country exporting a final good and a country exporting an intermediate good. The FTA unambiguously leads to a reduction in the member country’s tariff, but may cause the non-member country’s tariff level to increase. In the case, where FTA raises the non-member country’s tariff level, the FTA increases that country’s welfare. In contrast, the FTA may render its member countries better off. This result implies that the formation of an FTA may not always be Pareto-improving.     

Best practices for regional trade agreements

Complicated web of hub-and-spoke type of overlapping free trade agreements (FTAs) can result in high costs for verifying rules of origin (RoO) and trade diversion or suppression effects. This paper attempts to provide best practices for regional trade agreements (RTAs) to enhance global free trade by mitigating these negative effects. By adopting a gravity regression analysis, we quantitatively estimate the trade creation and diversion effects of cumulated RoO (bilateral, diagonal, and full cumulation) for RTAs established under GATT Article XXIV and under the Enabling Clause. We find that (i) RTAs, in general, create trade among members and divert trade from nonmembers, whereby the net trade-enhancing effect is rather weak; (ii) RTAs should be established under the comprehensive GATT Article XXIV, rather than the piecemeal Enabling Clause; and (iii) full cumulation is the most optimal provision in terms of creating the most intra-bloc trade and diverting the least extra-bloc trade. Overall, we strongly suggest that RTAs should employ full cumulation of RoO under GATT Article XXIV.     

Towards new agreements on international trade liberalization

Zusammenfassung Zu neuen Abkommen über Liberalisierung des internationalen Handels. — Die Vielfalt der nichttarif?ren Handelshemmnisse steht ihrem allgemeinen und linearen Abbau—analog den Zollverhandlungen der Kennedy-Runde — bislang entgegen. In der vorliegenden Studie wird daher vorgeschlagen, für jedes Land einen ?Zolltarif der nichttarif?ren Handelshemmnisse? zu berechnen, indem auβertarif?re Maβnahmen in Form von Zoll?quivalenten quantifiziert werden. Dabei ist die zentrale Hypothese, daβ jedes Handelshemmnis die Differenz zwischen heimischen Erzeugerpreisen und Importpreisen vergr?βert; diese Differenz—gemessen in vom Hundert des Importpreises—ist das Zoll?quivalent. Die Methode der Quantifizierung sollte je nach Art der statistischen Daten gew?hlt werden. Drei M?glichkeiten werden vorgeführt, und zwar für homogene Produkte ein direkter Preisvergleich am Beispiel des Steinkohlebergbaus, für heterogene Produkte ein Elastizit?tsansatz am Beispiel der feinkeramischen Industrie und ein Vergleich von Warenk?rben am Beispiel der Textilindustrie. Abschlieβend werden m?gliche Divergenzen zwischen Protektionswirkungen und Protektionsabsichten untersucht.

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Resumen Hacia un nuevo acuerdo sobre la liberalizatión del comercio international. —La diversidad de barreras no arancelarias existente se ha mostrado como obstáculo a una desarme general y lineal análogo a las reducciones arancelarias en la ronda Kennedy. En el presente trabajo los autores proponen el establecimiento, en cada pais, de un ?arancel aduanero de las trabas no arancelarias? que se obtiene mediante la calculación de equivalentes arancelarios de aquellas trabas. La premisa central es que cualquier barrera a la importatión aumenta la diferencia entre los precios industriales domésticos y los de importación; esta diferencia, expresada como porcentaje del precio de importación, corresponde al equivalente arancelario. El método de cuantificación a aplicar deberá regirse por los datos estadfsticos disponibles. Los autores presentan très posibilidades, a saber: para productos homogéneos una comparación de precios directa, tomándose como ejemplo la industria extractiva del carbón, para productos heterogéneos un concepto de elasticidad, sirviendo de ejemplo la industria de la cerámica, y una comparación de la cesta de productos, utilizándose como ejemplo la industria textil. Finalmente los autores analizan posibles divergencias entre los efectos y las intenciones de medidas proteccionistas.

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Résumé Vers de nouveaux accords sur la libéralisation du commerce international. —La diversité des barrières non-tarifaires au commerce a jusqu’ à présent empêché leur réduction universelle et linéaire—conformément aux réductions tarifaires du ?Kennedy Round?. Dans l’article que voici on propose donc de calculer pour chaque pays un tarif douanier des barrières non-tarifaires en quantifiant les mesures non-tarifaires sous forme d’équivalents de tarifs. L’hypothèse qui en sert de base soutient que chaque barrière au commerce international augmente la différence entre les prix du marché national et ceux du marché mondial; cette différence — exprimée en pourcentages des prix d’importation—représente l’équivalent du tarif douanier. La méthode de quantification doit être adaptée aux données statistiques qu’on possède. Trois possibilités sont discutées en détail: pour les produits homogènes, la comparaison directe démontrée à l’exemple de l’industrie minière du charbon; pour les produits hétérogènes, un calcul d’élasticité demontre à l’exemple de l’industrie de poterie, et la comparaison de paniers de marchandises démontrée à l’exemple de l’industrie textile. Finalement, sont examinées les divergences possibles entre les effets du protectiónnisme et l’intention protectionniste.

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Riassunto Di nuovi accordi sulla liberalizzazione del commercio internazionale. —La molteplicit à degli ostacoli commerciali non tariffari sta finora in opposizione —analogamente aile trattative doganali del Kennedy-Runde—alla sua generale e lineare demolizione. Nel presente studio viene perció proposto di calcolare per ogni Paese una ?tariffa doganale degli ostacoli commerciali non tariffari?, mentre provvedimenti extratariffari sono quantificati in forma di equivalenze doganali. Inoltre l’ipotesi centrale è che ogni ostacolo commerciale ingrandisce la differenza tra prezzi di prodotti nazionali e prezzi d’importazione; questa differenza—misurata in per cento del prezzo d’importazione—è l’equivalenza doganale. Il metodo delia quantificazione dovrebbe essere scelto a seconda del genère dei dati statistici. Tre possibilit à sono presentate, e cioè per prodotti omogenei un diretto confronto dei prezzi sull’esempio dell’industria mineraria del carbone, per prodotti eterogenei un’impiego di elasticit à sull’esempio dell’industria di cerámica fine e un confronto di canestri di merci sull’esempio dell’industria tessile. In ultimo sono analizzate possibili divergenze tra effetti di protezione e intenzioni di protezione.

     

Changes in world trade

Summary In the last twenty years world trade has displayed not only a rapid growth rate but also considerable changes in composition of goods and regional structure. In particular the trade in industrial products has strongly increased in both absolute and relative terms. Intra-industry trade has also played an important part in this. Trade policy and regional industrialization are the principal factors explaining the latter phenomenon.The relatively rapid increase in the trade in industrial products in respect of the world production of these goods proves to be a recent phenomenon, which did not occur before 1914. The causes that may be adduced for this — rapid economic growth, lowering of trade barriers and regional economic integration — will probably no longer occur in the near future. The possibility of a slower growth rate for world trade thus seems considerable.The figures for the tables were collected by H. van Harten, econ. cand., and by H. Hoytink, econ. cand., to whom I should like to express my gratitude.     

展会经济与世界贸易

对一个城市来说,成功的会展是名利双收的事业。一个城市能不能跻身于国际大都市,一个重要标志就是召开国际会议的数量和规模。     

Domestic product standards,harmonization, and free trade agreements

Review of World Economics - This study considers endogenous domestic standards on products to control negative consumption externalities using a three-country model of international oligopoly with...     

Swedish-Polish trade negotiations at the end of the second world war and their results

Abstract

Commercial relations between Sweden and Poland have been important for many centuries. This was perhaps particularly true at the end of the sixteenth century, when the Swedish king Sigismund was monarch of both Poland and Sweden, and again in the seventeenth century, when successful warmaking enabled Sweden to conquer northern Poland and exploit the wealthy Polish ports to finance a large part of the war costs. Much has come to light concerning the very important trade of this period. Such relations were reestablished during the twentieth century.     

The breadth of preferential trade agreements and the margins of exports

Review of World Economics - The paper uses recently available data on the core economic provisions of PTAs to identify which (types of) provisions seem to promote bilateral exports and the...     

Strategic export subsidies and reciprocal trade agreements: The natural monopoly case

Why do governments seek restrictions on the use of export subsidies through reciprocal trade agreements such as GATT? In this paper, we emphasize that subsidy competition between governments can serve to coordinate the entry decisions of firms, finding that consumers in the importing countries may suffer if the coordination afforded exporters by government subsidy programs does more to prevent entry than to promote it. In such circumstances, we show that the existence of export subsidy programs can lead to inefficiencies, and importing countries and the world as a whole can be better off when such programs are banned.     

On the bilateral trade effects of free trade agreements between the EU-15 and the CEEC-4 countries

The expansion of regionalism has spawned an extensive theoretical literature analysing the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on trade flows. In this paper we focus on FTAs (also called European agreements) between the European Union (EU-15) and the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC-4, i.e. Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania) and model their effects on trade flows by treating the agreement variable as endogenous. Our theoretical framework is the gravity model, and the econometric method used to isolate and eliminate the potential endogeneity bias of the agreement variable is the fixed effect vector decomposition (FEVD) technique. Our estimation results indicate a positive and significant impact of FTAs on trade flows. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the sample of a group of control countries (specifically Belarus, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine) that did not sign an FTA. Besides, we show that trade growth after the FTA agreement with the EU was signed exceeded trade growth of the control group of countries, which did not become members.

Genetic distance,cultural differences,and the formation of regional trade agreements

Review of World Economics - Genetic distance between countries’ populations has been shown to proxy cross-country differences in cultures and preferences. In an unbalanced panel of 133...     

Recent trends in intra-industry trade and their implications for future trade liberalization

Zusammenfassung Jüngste Entwicklungen im intra-industriellen Handel und ihre Bedeutung für eine künftige Handelsliberalisierung. — In diesem Aufsatz wird untersucht, ob sich die Muster des intra-industriellen Handels (IIH) aus den sechziger und siebziger Jahren in den achtziger Jahren fortgesetzt haben. Es wird gefragt, ob der historische Nachkriegstrend in Richtung auf einen verst?rkten IIH umgekehrt wurde und — falls das der Fall war — weshalb. In der Analyse werden Daten aus 16 OECD-L?ndern für die Perioden 1970–1980 und 1975–1985 verwendet. Die Entwicklung des IIH scheint besonders für die Handelsabkommen relevant zu sein, bei denen die Partner erwarten, da\ die haupts?chlichen Handelsanpassungen innerhalb der Firmen und Industriezweige stattfinden und weniger zwischen den Industriezweigen. Zwei kürzlich abgeschlossene bilaterale Abkommen — zwischen Neuseeland und Australien und zwischen Kanada und den Vereinigten Staaten — beleuchten diese Fragestellung.

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Résumé Les tendances récentes du commerce intra-industriel et leurs effets sur la libéralisation du commerce extérieur en futur. — Cette étude examine si les caractéristiques du commerce intra-industriel dans les années soixante et soixante-dix sont les mêmes comme dans les années quatre-vingt. Il est demandé si la tendance historique après la dernière guerre mondiale vers un commerce intra-industriel plus fort s’est changée et, si oui, quelles sont les causes d’une telle évolution. L’analyse compend des données de 16 pays de l’OCDE pour les années 1970–1980 et 1975–1985. Les tendances du commerce intra-industriel semblent être particulièrement importantes pour les accords du commerce en futur si les partenaires attendent que les ajustements primaires ont lieu plus en firmes et en industries qu’entre des secteurs industriels. Deux accords bilatéraux donnent un exemple récent: c’est l’accord entre la Nouvelle Zélande et l’Australie et celui entre le Canada et les Etats Unis.

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Resumen Tendencias recientes en el comercio intrasectorial y sus implicaciones para una futura liberalización del comercio. — En este trabajo se investiga si el patrón de comercio intrasectorial (CIS) de la década del 60 y del 70 continué en los a?os 80. Se pregunta, si la tendencia histórica de la posguerra indicando un aumento del CIS se ha revertido, y, en caso de ser así, ?porqué? El análisis cubre datos para 16 países miembros de la OECD para dos periodos, 1970–1980 y 1975–1985. La tendencia del CIS parece ser particularmente relevante para futuros acuerdos comerciales en los cuales los participantes esperan que los ajustes primarios en el comercio tengan lugar dentro de las empresas y dentro de los sectores industriales, en vez de entre los sectores. Dos acuerdos bilaterales recientes, firmados entre Nueva Zelandia y Australia por un lado y entre Canadá y los EE.UU. por el otro, arrojan algo de luz sobre el tema.

     

A time series approach to study the dynamic effects of bilateral trade agreements

International Economics and Economic Policy - In this work, the effects of 103 bilateral regional trade agreements (RTAs: partial scope agreements — PSAs — and free trade agreements...     

世界服务贸易的发展态势及我国的对策

国际服务贸易是世界贸易的新增长点。本文首先分析了世界服务贸易的发展态热和我国服务贸易发展的整体规模和内部行业结构，在此基础上从国际竞争的角度，就中国入世后如何发展服务贸易提出了几点建议。